http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_091130_190030imru.MP3

Off to the Tyra Banks Show I will post that as soon as I return and find out when it will air!

WOOF!!

Buck

He is one of the most famous porn stars in the world with an impressive collection of films under his belt. He has been photographed and captured by many artists worldwide. He is ruggedly handsome, layered in stunning tattoos and his pierced sexy muscled body is a stunning example of manhood. But there are plenty more other reasons why Californian born Buck Angel is so captivating and fascinating. Buck is a self made man like no other. He was born and raised as Susan.

“A lot of people ask me what it was like growing up as a girl… it’s funny because I was never raised that way,” says Buck.

“I was a tomboy. I wore boys clothes and played outside a lot. Everyone always treated me like a boy growing up so always felt I was one.”

Susan was tall, beautiful, athletic and graceful. She was a star athlete, excelling in track and field sports. She also had a promising career as a professional model that saw her going overseas to Europe and the UK. But all of those opportunities were slowly destroyed with the gradual onset of puberty, which was totally traumatic for her.

“All those hormones rushed around my body, which quickly started to change and I began menstruating. I grew breasts. I felt this utter disconnection from my body, which really didn’t feel like mine anymore. What was happening within my body didn’t match up with how I saw myself.”

People also changed the way they treated Susan. She was always attracted to girls and suddenly she was expected to like boys, wear dresses and expected to be and act like a girl – something that felt quite foreign.

“What was worse was that I felt so alone in all of that. I couldn’t express myself or my feelings to anyone else. You have to understand that it was a very different time… people weren’t understanding of ‘gay’ let alone ‘transsexual’. Everyone else seemed at ease and perfectly happy with what was going on with their bodies. I was really depressed and I went inside myself. I started acting out and becoming incredibly self destructive… but I didn’t know what else to do.”

Susan started drinking heavily, using drugs, and acting out in self-destructive ways. Her distraught parents helped her get into an expensive $30,000 rehab center where she was pampered while being given a chance to beat her addictions. It didn’t work too well, and within days of being out of the program, she was using drugs again. Her parents had enough, and kicked her out of home. It was something that Buck says needed to happen.

Luckily androgyny was in style, and with Susan’s gorgeous face and tall lean body she easily scored modeling gigs, gaining opportunities to travel overseas to Europe and the UK. It was a good excuse to run away, but still Susan couldn’t leave behind the battle going on inside. Everyone around her said that he had what it took to become a supermodel. It wasn’t long before the drugs, alcohol and her behaviour was out of control again and she was sent packing back to the US.

Homeless, living on the streets, hustling and prostituting to get by, Susan hit rock bottom. She was sent to another rehab program.

“This was a community rehab center for those on the edge, and it was really hard but the best thing that could have happened to me. The program made me take responsibility for my life and my actions. It also helped me realise where my real issues lay… it made me face and accept that I am a man,” says Buck.

With the program complete, Susan started officially living as a man. He got a job working in a warehouse; he got a girlfriend and started rebuilding his life. But it wasn’t till the fateful day when he came across the film Gendernauts that featured a female to male transsexual, that Buck realised that he needed to start the process of becoming a man, not just psychologically but physically.

“You’ve gotta understand that it was a very different time I lived in when I was going through all this. No one even knew female to male sex change surgery was even an option, especially me.”

You can imagine how much the realisation of that possibility changed my life! No one I knew had done it… and then I saw that amazing movie.”

Buck Angel’s body was at least ten years in the making – a slow, thought out and planned regimen of transformation that included psychiatry, hormones, surgery and a hell of a lot of gym sessions. Buck was in no rush, taking plenty of time to properly research and inquire about his options. Finding the right professional for each step with the right caring nurturing attitude was essential, but even then there were limitations.

“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a total perfectionist. I mean, just look at my body, my chest surgery. Even looking at the latest surgical developments don’t really offer anything close to a real penis. There are often many complications, risk of infections after surgery, severe scaring and after all that, they aren’t that big. My toys are way better!” he laughs. “What I’ve got works perfectly and it gives me lots of options. I decided to keep my vagina. I’m still a man… just a man with a pussy.”

Is a man with a vagina still a man? Buck is quick to share his perspective on that.

“What is a man? If a man loses his genitals in say a car accident, are you not a man anymore? Of course you are. Being a man is more about what’s in your head than what your body looks like.”

The whole idea of transsexuals is largely an abstract concept to most people, many of whom have probably never consciously met a transsexual. The reason that Buck Angel is so challenging is that he makes those concepts real, and by his very existence throws our narrow definitions of gender into question. What is a man? How do you know you are one? What if you’re attracted to him – what does that make you?

Given that the gay and lesbian, transsexual and porn communities are often so marginalised and ostracised, you’d expect that Buck Angel would find acceptance or at least understanding there, but nothing could be further from the truth.

“Nearly all my lesbian friends disowned and rejected me during and after my change. They saw it as me rejecting my womanhood and lesbian sexuality… and they took that very personally. They were fine with me dressing butch, getting tatts and strapping down my breasts, but once it came to hormones and surgery it was a whole different story. I quickly learned who my real friends were, but that was a very isolating experience.

“To many of the trans activists, at least the ones in the States, I’m held up as an example of what not to be, and I’ve personally witnessed situations where some very nasty personal things have been said about me… painful, uninformed and hurtful things. They might show stills or clips from my movies and cast judgment, totally without context or without ever allowing me the right to share my perspective. It’s unfair and it’s a real shame too, because my point of view is valid.”

And then there was the porn industry that in the beginning was terrified of what Buck Angel represented. Studios and individuals simply refused to work with Buck initially. Buck wasn’t just a trans man who liked women, but also ‘loves being fucked by men’. There wasn’t really anyone out there like him and that was challenging. But in porn, money talks.

While working as a warehouse worker, Buck also found an interest in the Internet and web design. With his very supportive girlfriend, he started his own porn website which at first featured still images of himself and then eventually small amateur movies. So successful was the site that it brought enough attention to score a 12-picture deal with a porn studio; the first female to male transgender porn star to be signed up to a major studio. He made Cirque Noir with big gay porn studio Titan Men becoming the first transsexual to ever appear in one of their films. He also started creating his own films and online video content that has done outstandingly well. Films like Buckback Mountain, V For Vagina and Bang For Your Buck.

It wasn’t too long before the industry realised that a huge market that existed for the kind of porn that Buck was making and before long he had amounted a substantial filmography. It was also apparent that he was a brilliant performer. In 2007 Buck Angel was not only nominated for Transsexual performer of the year, but he actually took out the title. It was a proud day for Buck Angel.

Since that fateful award win, his career highlights include being a special guest at the infamous Black Party and being a performer in Stairway To Hell for the Jim Rose Circus. Buck has also been captured by various artists and photographers internationally. US photographer Joe Oppedisano captured an amazing image of Buck that he included in his publication Testosterone. When publishers said they did not want the image of Buck Angel in Testosterone, Oppedisano apparently said ‘either the picture stays or there will be no book’.

Buck is also one of 12 enigmatic people, including singer Michael Jackson and model Kate Moss, to have their entire body cast in gold by UK artist Marc Quinn. He has been interviewed by publications worldwide and has been a guest on countless television shows including talk show Maury Povich. Buck Angel is a phenomenon with legions of fans around the world, especially in Australia where he hopes to visit soon.

“It has always been a dream of mine to come to Australia. That is definitely something that I’d like to do soon. I have so many fans there… in fact it’s one of my biggest fan bases in the world,” says Buck. “I get the impression that you Aussies really understand where I’m coming from. I’d love to do Mardi Gras! It looks so amazing and I’d love to be a part of that.”

It’s the day before Buck’s birthday, and he ends the interview by reflecting on his life so far, and the wisdom he’s gathered along the way.

“You need to live your life on your terms, and not let other people tell you what’s right for you. You know what feels right for you. If people reading your article walk away with anything, I hope it’s that message.”

Buck and Sarah at Much Music Canada

WOOF

Buck Angel

Translation from Hebrew

Buck Angel – Porno Star
Buck Angel is the first, most famous and most successful transsexual man in the entire mainstream porn industry. “The moment he came into my life, he became a symbol and banner for gender freedom and the ability to design one’s body and gender in any way I chose.”

By Lee Sever
Monday, 23 February 2009

A short biography of Buck
Buck Angel was born with female anatomy, and lived for many years as a woman. In numerous interviews as well as on his official website, he stated that even before he was aware that the possibility existed for a sex-change operation, he felt uncomfortable with his body and gender.
This discomfort increased beyond depression, and found expression in destructive behaviors of alcohol and drug addiction. During the time Buck lived as a woman, he worked as a model, with contracts with two of the largest, best known agencies – Elite Model Management and Z Agency, London. Nevertheless, Buck was unhappy.
The change in Angel’s life came about after he saw a movie about a transsexual man, which was a kind of revelation for Buck. After this, his path to change was clear. He could see that this was the path he had been on his entire life, from childhood and adolescence as a tomboy to an androgynous woman and, finally, as a man. Buck began hormone treatment, and underwent an operation two years later to shape a masculine chest. At the same time, Buck began a painstaking physical training regimen which he currently maintains, to create the body of the man he had always dreamed of being.

A refreshing change in the porn industry
After his change, Buck began to act in porn films, mainly in the fetish genre. But when he realized that there were hardly any porn films featuring transsexual men in the industry in general and on the web in particular, he was determined to bring about a change. This decision led him to build his website in 2003, www.Transexual-Man.com – and: the rest is history. The website was a huge success, and Buck began to see his dream come true: the creation of hot porn which was not an underground movement or a freak show.

Buck is now famous throughout the world, and is considered a star of the industry. He appeared in the “Adventures of Allanah’ Starr’s Big Boob” together with Allanah Starr and Wendy Williams, two transsexual women, in a scene which was the first of its kind in the industry. There had never before been a scene on film featuring a transsexual man with a transsexual woman. Buck was signed by leading companies in the field, and in 2007, was the first transsexual man to be named “Transsexual Performer of the Year” at the AVN awards, the porn industry’s “Oscars,” which until then had been awarded only to transsexual women.

Buck was nominated for the same prize in 2008 and again in 2009. In 2009 he was nominated for the Most Outrageous Scene at the AVN prize ceremony for a scene in which he performs with another transsexual man. Buck continues to lead the revolution in the porn industry and advance the status of transsexual men in the world of porn.

Buck and I
Why Buck Angel? As someone who has never been a porn consumer, whose lack of comfort with one’s own body and sexuality stand out so much in my daily life, my chances of being exposed to porn or to Buck Angel were slim indeed. I can’t clearly remember the first time I heard his name, but the moment he came into my life, he became a symbol and a banner for gender freedom and the way to shape my body and gender any way I choose. Buck calls himself “The Man with a Pussy,” a definition with tremendous freedom, freedom which I have not dared to take in my present life. In the “rainbow community,” the necessity of choosing between “blue” and “pink” remains a permanent trouble for me.

To state the obvious, not every transgender or transsexual man has female anatomy, or chooses the identity that Buck took for himself. To go even further, for at least part of the trans community, this declaration can be taken as disrespectful or arouse dysphoria. But that’s not the situation for me. The combination of Buck’s looks in photos and films along with the interviews in which I heard him speak, give me both tremendous strength and hope, as well.

Buck’s revolutionary identity makes it possible for me to believe that one day, I, too, will be able to create a new identity that suits me, that I will be able to come out of the closet with my masculinity and my femininity and feel comfortable, that I have the possibility of building up a masculine body with all the means at my disposal while still maintaining my self-definition as a femme. That the masculine shirt and binder during the day will easily change into the pink body suit, black stockings, sequined hair elastic and point shoes during my ballet lessons.

Knowing Buck
I have known/been acquainted with “Buck Angel – Porn Star” for a long time. The moment I heard about him, my interest grew, and he became one more source of inspiration in my life. But this is not my only acquaintance with him. Buck’s personality projects so much light and happiness that it gives the feeling that I know him from up close, and not only as the porn star he is. He maintains an official fan site and a frequently-updated personal blog, which allows readers to get to know him better and become acquainted with his daily life. He has been interviewed dozens of times, with no subject a taboo.

To define Buck Angel as merely a porn star, in the best case is imprecise, and in the worst case, denigrates the value of his work, because, for his entire life, Buck Angel has been a groundbreaker in pop culture and in the history of transgenders. He has changed the gender perception of so many people as a transgender star in the porn industry.

Just Us Boys Interview

WOOF!!

Buck